Review: The Almond and The Seahorse

Mar 7 2008 by Mike Smith, Western Mail

Sherman Cymru, Cardiff

COPIES of Kaite O’Reilly’s play are available for sale from Sherman Cymru and I highly recommend buying a copy.

After watching this intelligent work I went to supper with my partner and in the course of the meal found myself flicking through the pages and quoting at least three passages from the play in salient parts of the conversation.

The play is about two couples whose lives are frankly destroyed because of one half of each couple having brain damage and losing their parts of their memory.

But it is full of other observations on the nature of life, of relationships, of change, of aging which transcend the specific situation our characters are forced into because of a car accident and through a brain tumour.

It is also worth having the script because of one of the downsides of the play is the fact that it is a slightly difficult balance of realistic dialogue and interactions with rather artificial, poetic discourses, references and analogies that are slightly too clever for spontaneous everyday conversations. They read better on the page than they sound when supposedly part of a spontaneous conversation.

There is also a little lack of subtlety. Yes, there is, of course, irony in the character whose partner is slipping further and further into the past, as his memory is decaying, being an archeologist. But we don’t really need to be told it is ironic and then explain the irony.

Similarly the reflection on the nature of get- well tokens sent to sick people, ranging from Indian gods to beanie dolls, is a little over explained.

But this is a reflection on the depth of the content of the play which also has flashes of brilliance. The phone conversation when a baffled Joe, played by Celyn Jones, is called by a woman in India who he can’t remember knowing and who asks him about his electricity supplier is brilliant.

The relationship between Gwennan , played by Olwen Rees, and Tom, played by Ian Saynor , was extremely, moving. Gwennan has lost all memory since a car crash when she was a young woman and every morning is Groundhog Day when she looks in the mirror and is freaked out by the 50-year-old woman looking back at her. She does not know the similarly greying man her husband has become and who keeps trying to talk to her.

In desperation Tom, who has been her carer for 20 years, encounters Joe’s wife Sarah, played by Nia Gwynne, both being in need of comfort and some respite in each others company.

All the way through we have the neuropsychologist Dr Ife Falmer played by Mojisola Adebayo who discusses the illnesses, the behaviour of the patients, and tries to reach out and help the partners.

Two narrative devices are adopted for the doctor with varying success. One is the doctor talking to the audience on the nature of memory, its fragility etc and the other is, Sex And The City-style, typing observations into her laptop with key words illuminated across the set. Both interesting if at times a little unsubtle when it turns out the doctor has issues herself with memory loss in the family.

In all, a fascinating work, totally engaging and a text worth delving into again and again. The cast is faultless, impeccable performances, sympathetically given and true.

The Almond and the Seahorse are, by the way, parts of the brain associated with memory.

The play is at the venue until March 15 before touring to Theatr Brecheiniog, Brecon, April 2; Clwyd Theatr Cymru, Mold, April 4 & 5 and Aberystwyth Arts Centre, April 8

4 out of 5